British Columbia makes apology for racism to Chinese Canadians

British Columbia Premier Christy Clark: “Racist discrimination” against Chinese was once government policy but is now seen as “unacceptable and intolerable.”

The usually raucous British Columbia Legislature, in a rare show of unanimity, has issued a formal apology to Chinese Canadians for a litany of racist laws and restrictions once designed to block emigration to Canada from China.

“While the governments which passed these laws and policies acted in a manner that was lawful at the time, today this racist discrimination is seen by British Columbians — and all members of this legislative assembly — as unacceptable and intolerable,” said Premier Christy Clark.

“We can’t undo actions of the past, but we can apologize and learn from them. Today, we rightly recognize and celebrate cultural diversity — and that is why all sides of the Legislature were able to come together to offer our deepest regrets to members of the Chinese community for historic wrongs.”

The Chinese were imported by the thousands to build Canada’s trans-continental railroad, which was competed in the 1880’s.

After that, official policy was to keep them out. A $50 “head tax” was imposed in 1883, and increased to $500 in 1903. A law called the Exclusion Act barred all Chinese immigration from 1923 to 1947. Laws against immigration were kept on the books until 1967. Chinese Canadians were not allowed to vote until 1949.

In recent years, however, Chinese Canadians have served in the cabinets of Canada and British Columbia, and an emigre from Hong Kong — David Lam — became one of B.C.’s leading philanthropists and the B.C. lieutenant governor — Queen Elizabeth’s ceremonial representative in Victoria.

Canada has been far more forthright than the United States about apologizing for past ills.

Whenever President Obama has lamented a past wrong, the president has found himself sneered at on Fox News, denounced as a weakling by Rush Limbaugh, and depicted as craven by the far-right Drudge Report web site.

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper has apologized for the so-called “Indian schools” in which aboriginal children were yanked away from their families and native villages, and sent hundreds of miles away to boarding schools.

Harper’s government has compensated some surviving Chinese Canadians who paid the Head Tax, and their families.

The British Columbia apology carries no financial provisions, but Clark did announce a $1 million legacy fund for “educational initiatives” related to racism.

Clark heads the not-very-liberal B.C. Liberal Party. Two years ago, an internal memo disclosed Liberals’ strategies for courting the ethnic vote — including apologies for past wrongs. Such apologies were described in the memo as “quick wins.”